Elite Dangerous Music

Erasmus Talbot and Jim Croft developed the dynamic music system that allows the score to ‘breathe’ and reflect gameplay. Croft managed a team of talented individuals who also worked on audio such as ship engine sound and the ship's voice. Croft said it's been an absolute honor and privilege to be involved with Elite Dangerous.[1]

Jim Croft, Head of Audio at Frontier

The Elite Dangerous Original Soundtrack has over 2 hours of music content to immerse yourself in the Elite Dangerous universe. It includes an eight-page full colour PDF booklet containing extensive sleeve notes by composer Erasmus Talbot and Executive Music Producer and Frontier Head of Audio, Jim Croft. The initial release date was April 1, 2015 and it's available at the Frontier store.[2]

Contents

Erasmus Talbot Talks about his inspiration and the challenges in composing the score for Elite: Dangerous.

“As a composer there could be nothing more exciting and fun than writing sweeping themes, vast exploration music and energetic battle cues for an epic sci-fi game. And while it will be fun to study and reference my favourite scores, I feel that drive that is simply part of Elite’s legacy to defy convention, push the boundaries and try something new.[3]

For this first trailer, I stayed close to the musical language typically associated with the genre, drawing from scores of recent sci-fi blockbuster such as Star Trek, Oblivion, Star Wars I-III etc. while trying to find my own voice in the themes and use of synth. As with game play and art style, the musical style is very much in development and my ambitions to find a unique, yet fitting musical identity for Elite: Dangerous are extremely high.[3]

Elite:Dangerous will take players through a vast universe, range of gameplay scenarios and game modes. For music to enhance these experiences without becoming repetitive is a challenge that I am relishing. The right balance between musical styles and moods will have to be found, coupled with a suitable interactive playback system. How do we reflect a procedurally created and potentially infinite universe? How does music develop over the course of an epic 1 hour battle? These are just some of the questions we have to answer.[3]

Also, on the practical side, it is already clear that the soundtrack will be highly orchestral. This means confronting ourselves extensively with orchestration, score creation, live recording and wherever we apply sample libraries, highly detailed midi programming for convincing, musical results.[3]

Creatively, stepping out of the shadows of Holst, Williams and co. will take quite some confidence and experimentation but it’s essential to reflect musically the unique character of Elite:Dangerous’ gameplay.”[3]